Studio Time with Dick Orr on 3/13/15 - Posted on 2015-03-17 by John Pieniazek

Started my first recording project with Dick on Friday.  I picked a piece of music ("Somebody Help Me" by John Fogerty) as my project piece. This session consisted of reviewing basic music theory (chords, chord progressions, time and tempo, etc.), working out what instruments are part of the song, the tempo of the song, and what measure of the song that the drums come in.  I will, on subsequent sessions, play, sing, record, and mix all instruments and vocals from the song, and create a master recording on CD.  This week, I need to start working out the drum and percussion parts.  Starting next Friday, 3/20, I will start playing and recording the drum parts of the song, by playing the drum kit on a synthesizer. Then in later sessions I'll play and record the bass guitar, lead and rythym guitar, and keyboards, and sing and record the vocals, and then mix for recording on CD.  This will bring together everything Dick and I have been going over in the studio for the last 5 sessions.

Right now, I'm very excited about it all, and it's great to be immersed in music again!  I'll have to hone my musical skills, learn recording and mixing skills, and find a way to find work in the field, whether it's an internship, part-time position, whatever, to begin with.  I really like Dick's teaching methods and philosophy.  I'll learn audio engineering from the perspective of the musician and engineer, which makes so much sense to me.

Anyway, enough for now, and much more to come!  I am pumped up!

JP